Chipper/Shredders are well known garden and landscape accessories used to reduce a variety of items such as leaves, twigs, small braches, cardboard, etc. to small pieces. Typically, a chipper/shredder is provided with a hopper to receive the materials to be shredded, macerated or otherwise reduced and a hopper throat to guide the material towards high speed, rotating pulverizing or macerating elements (chipping/shredding elements). For purposes of ease of understanding the term shredder and the term chipper/shredder are intended to include devices which pulverize and/or macerate such garden waste and the elements, such as flails, which actually do the "work".
A flexible rubber barrier (flap) may be provided near the top of the hopper throat as a protective barrier to prevent unwanted items from reaching the elements and to prevent material being shreded by the elements from inadvertantly being thrown back out of the hopper.
A problem with the aforementioned design is that light, bulky materials such as dry leaves, straw and twigs may not have sufficient weight to deflect the barrier or to overcome the "funnel effect" of the throat and reach the chipping/shredding elements, and therefore, extra force is required to push the materials past the barrier and through the throat to reach the elements. It is, of coures, unacceptable for an operator to manually force the materials through the barrier because of potential injuries.
It is a primary object of the invention to provide a tamping tool for pushing light or bulky materials in a hopper of a chipper/shredder towards the chipper/shredder elements, which tool is both safe and easy to operate;
It is another object of the invention to provide a tamping tool which is low in cost, safe to use and strong, durable and lightweight;
It is a further object of the invention to provide a tamping tool having a safety stop which prevents the tool from contacting the chipper/shredder elements of the machine;
It is another object of the invention to provide a tamping tool having a pair of handles for increased pushing force and inherently safe two hand operation and handle grips which provide a convenient, confortable and secure grip;
It is a further object of the invention to provide a tamping tool having a built-in structure for easily keeping the tool the hopper of the chipper/shredder;
Other objects will be in part obvious and in part pointed out in more detail hereinafter.
A better understanding of the objects, advantages, features, properties and relations of the invention will be obtained from the following descriptions and accompanying drawings which set forth certain illustrative embodiments and are indicative of the various ways in which the principles of the invention are employed.